# 60. That the Consulate and all Other Offices in Rome were conferred without Respect to Age

It is attested by historical records that after the consulate had been thrown open to the plebs the Roman republic granted it to its citizens without respect either to age or to birth. In Rome indeed no attention had ever been paid to age: what it had always looked for was virtue, whether in the young or in the old. Valerius Corvinus, who was made consul in his twenty-third year, bears witness to this, for he said in a speech to his troops, that the consulate was ‘the reward of virtue, not of birth’.

Whether this practice is to be commended or not is open to no small question. It was necessity that constrained the Romans to disregard birth; and the necessity Rome experienced should be operative in every state that would meet with the same success that Rome had, as has been remarked on other occasions. For one cannot put men to inconvenience without rewarding them, nor can they be deprived of the hope of obtaining the reward without danger. It soon became expedient, therefore, to give the plebs cause to hope for the consulate, a hope which it entertained for a while without having the consulate. This then failed to suffice, and it became expedient to give it effect. Should a state not avail itself of its plebs in any glorious undertaking, it can treat it as it likes, – a point we have made elsewhere. But if it wants to do what Rome did, it must make no such distinction.

This being granted, nothing can be adduced in favour of a distinction in regard to age. On the contrary, it is necessary to disregard it; for in appointing a young man to a post which demands the prudence of an older man, it will be found that, should the masses have to elect, they will give the post to one who has performed some noteworthy actions. And when a young man is of such virtue that some noteworthy deed of his has become a matter of public knowledge, it would be most harmful if the state could not then avail itself of him, but should have to wait till he had grown old and had lost that vigour of mind and that expeditiousness of which his country at the time could have made good use. Thus Rome made use of Valerius Corvinus, of Scipio, of Pompey and of many others who won triumphs as very young men.